Undertale Collection (Stories, Essays, Shitposts)
by Boltstriker
Summary: Have you ever said to yourself, "Hey me, I should write some stuff about Undertale." WELL I DIDDLY DARN GOSH DANG DID! Yeah so here's a couple of things regarding Undertale. Enjoy. #RIVERPERSONISTHERIVERPERSON2016 Oh yeah, and no rule 34. That's just nasty.
1. The Seeds of War Chapter 1 (Fanfiction)

A Message from the Author: Hello, I'm Boltstriker, if you don't already know yet. This is an Undertale fanfic I wrote in my spare time for some reason, and it's set after the Pacifist Run ends. As such, I cannot stress this enough, IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED UNDERTALE, DO NOT READ THIS FANFICTION. Undertale is best experienced blind, and reading fanfictions before finishing at least the Neutral Run will ruin your experience, and I would hate to do that to a fellow fan of the game. Also, just as a disclaimer, Undertale is owned by Toby Fox, and any character or location inside the game of Undertale belongs to him. Enjoy!

The Seeds of War

"WHAT?!"

The ambitious scarved skeleton was the first to respond to the terrible news Undyne bore. The death of the Monster Kid came as a shock to all of the Underground, most of all to Undyne. The child idolized the former head of the Royal Guard, and at once, all in the Throne Room knew the cause of death.

"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL FIGHT THESE SCOUNDRELS AT ONCE! THE MONSTER KID WILL BE AVENGED!" exclaimed Papyrus as he speedily exited the Throne Room through the back, certainly toward where the Barrier once stood, stopping all monsters from interacting with the outside world. Though nowadays, monsters were wishing the Barrier still stood, as King Asgore soon found out when news first broke of the deaths of Dogamy and Dogaressa.

Asgore rose from his throne, planting his feet firmly onto the patch of golden flowers that gave the room its shimmer. "Undyne, please follow him…"

"He'll get himself killed out there! One step ahead of you!" Undyne rushed out of the room, following the path that Papyrus took. Asgore could faintly make out screams of "NGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" as he turned to face Alphys.

"Send word for Sans, please, I wish to speak to him."

"W-what ab-bout Und-dyne?" The Royal Scientist inquired.

"I am sure Undyne can fend for herself. I must speak to Sans in Snowdin Forest as soon as possible." Asgore's voice was stern, and he could feel the fear in Alphys's eyes, but he dared not relent. This terrible matter was best left in the correct hands.

"Y-y-yes, of course, m-my king," Alphys stuttered as she left to take her shortcut through the True Lab. Asgore never liked what she had done down in that cesspool of scientific failures, but he would never exact judgment upon the poor scientist. After all, she only created those horrors on his orders.

 _Determination, such a double-edged sword_ , thought King Asgore, _it's destroyed the lives of so many, but saved the lives of many more_.

As Alphys left, Asgore turned to face the covered ornate throne in the back of the room, the farthest object from Asgore's throne and the bed of golden flowers covering the floor. If the monster king had one regret higher than any, it would be his quest to reap the SOULs of seven humans. The child, Frisk, had shown the king that humans could be caring and compassionate, but Asgore's actions stood in the way of reconciling with the one he cared about the most. Even after… _No, it isn't him, I must remember._

The king arrived in Snowdin Town under the cover of darkness, only noticed by the ever-present Endogeny. Asgore felt sorry for the dogs who lived in Snowdin, whose families had been fused together by determination as a result of his own flawed judgment. Upon his arrival, the king was to be guarded by the Royal Guards of Hotland, and they would guard the entrance to Grillby's during his conversation. Sans was the only one he could trust with the matter at hand, the only one who wouldn't call him insane. To be frank, the king often considering himself insane, twisted by years of torment and longing for those who left him.

He arrived at Grillby's flanked by his guards, and they stood watch, longswords crossed. Inside, the short skeleton was conversing with Grillby, whose gaze never seem to falter, much like the flames that were his head.

"Sorry, the king wants privacy," said Sans, and Grillby nodded, exiting the bar through the back door.

"Thank you," said Asgore, taking a seat next to Sans at the bar. "As you must know, there are problems at hand we must discuss."

Sans nodded grimly, "I understand. Alphys mentioned suspicions, uh, might I ask what they are?"

Asgore gazed out the window, watching the faint shadows of pine leaves blocking the view. "Sans, you of all people must know. My son, he is alive?"

The skeleton's eye flickered a bright blue, and then his eye sockets went black. "No. Not entirely."

"I remember him! He rose as an angel, and everything… everything disappeared." Tears welled in Asgore's eyes. The pain of losing his son... He remembered that Asriel had risen again, he was sure of it.

"You'll need to ask Alphys about your son. Just ask about the golden flowers," Sans put a hand on the bar counter. "You came to ask about the timelines."

Asgore nodded, and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. After a while of carefully choosing words, he said, "Is there a chance for us to resolve this conflict peacefully?"

"I can't tell the future, I'm sorry. I can only tell that you should keep safe watch over those SOULs, they could be of use to us soon."

"What of the child? You once told me Frisk had once destroyed the world. What is the risk to the monsters? To the Underground? _To Toriel?_ "

"There was a timeline in which Frisk had taken it upon themselves to destroy the Underground, for whatever reason, but as they progressed through the normal events of this story, they became less human. A terror… no, not a terror. A terror would imply innate scariness. A being had taken control of the child, and the child massacred every one of us. Even me, even you, everyone."

The king sighed, "I assume that timeline is not ours."

"You are right to assume so. Tell me, King Asgore, how did you learn about the timelines? We sealed the documents away."

"Your other lab partner still lives, and she is a great confidant of mine. Your experiment was nearly complete, but his analysis stated that an anomaly was skewing the data, am I right?"

Sans lowered his voice, "I see no reason why this pertains to the coming war…"

"Who was the anomaly, Sans?"

"The scientist told us never to divulge the secrets of the experiment..."

"Tell me…"

"Your son."


	2. This Essay Fills You With Determination

This Essay Fills You with Determination – by Boltstriker

In the world of Undertale, the popular indie game created by Toby "Radiation" Fox, there are objects called SOULs that act very similarly to real life souls, as the culmination of your being. These SOULs appear at numerous times during the game, as in addition to the protagonist's SOUL appearing in battle, the main antagonist Flowey uses these SOULs during his Neutral and Pacifist final boss fights to gain more power. Human SOULs are much more powerful than monster SOULs, as shown during the legendary war that ended in the Barrier's creation and sealing of the monsters in the Underground. However, each of the seven human SOULs corresponding to the seven children who fell into the Underground after the death of Chara and Prince Asriel also represent a specific emotion. Below, I will attempt to prove my theories regarding the links between characters and SOULs.

Let's start with what should be the easiest SOUL to link, the red one. Obviously, the red SOUL belongs to two humans, the first human (canonically known as Chara, though mine was known as Drew, Darniu, and Billy) and the eighth (known as Frisk, not Drew or Darniu or Billy). The SOUL is the very culmination of the protagonist's being, as Flowey so happily tells us in the Ruins before trying to mercilessly murder us with bullet hell pellets. The red SOUL represents the trait of determination, a substance integral to the human SOUL, but deadly to monsters. Only nine characters are known to have large amounts of determination; Frisk, Chara, Undyne, the five Amalgamates, and Flowey. That last one is important though, as Flowey is the only one without at least one SOUL. I think that instead of Frisk or Chara, the red SOUL corresponds to Flowey, a character with so much determination that until Frisk comes along he has the ability to save and reload the game, much to the chagrin of Sans. He is the first enemy you encounter, and teaches you about the SOUL and its characteristics. The red SOUL is also the only thing that prevents Photoshop Flowey from becoming the God of Hyperdeath, and the only thing that prevents Asriel from becoming even more powerful than the God of Hyperdeath and destroying the Barrier. Plus, Asriel Dreemurr is a monster, an "enemy," and thus would qualify for this comparison.

The orange SOUL represents bravery, and many have suggested that perhaps the monster best suited for this is Papyrus or Undyne, as they are the bravest monsters in the Underground. I think the bravery represented by this SOUL is much deeper than toughness. Bravery is facing the horrors of the world, and stepping out of your incubator and into reality. The Toriel boss fight represents this perfectly, as your protector and mother-figure cannot bear to let the replica of her lost child out into the Underground where monsters will rip you to shreds. By proving your bravery by standing your ground and refusing to fight (or murdering Toriel in cold blood if you're into that sort of thing), you progress into Snowdin Forest and finally face the real world, defending yourself from scary skeleton men with whoopee cushions and spaghetti, and a fish lady with a sword that would make Eddard Stark piss his pants.

The yellow SOUL seemed easy to me, as there's only one boss that actually makes the player yellow in the game. The yellow SOUL represents justice, and many think it might correspond to Undyne or Asgore, whose vengeance against humans fuels their actions in the game. But justice can come from other places, such as protecting a lizard lady who was entirely nice to you (even though she set up tons of traps and puzzles), or cutting off the legs of an androgynous narcissistic spotlight-obsessed killer robot. Yes, Mettaton is the enemy I believe corresponds to justice. Mettaton, as a robot, has no sense of emotion and thus would judge everything on its merits, as justice is usually represented. In the Genocide Route, Mettaton is even presented as a just figure during the Mettaton NEO fight, where he turns into a combat-ready version of his glamorous EX form. The player must deal out justice against Mettaton for attacking them (even if it was under Alphys's command), and for Mettaton's mistreatment of Alphys before the fight.

The green SOUL represents kindness, and it too fits into the same category as Mettaton, I thought. Undyne actually makes the player's SOUL green when fighting her so they can block her spears. Now, while Undyne is not a nice character to begin with, Frisk earns her friendship through kindness. During her fight in Waterfall (provided you're not a genocidal dick who attacks baby reptiles), Undyne will be filled with rage and vengeance, following you and attacking all the way to Hotland's entrance before collapsing of heat exhaustion. While pouring a cup of water on her head may not seem like a grand gesture, it shows to her that humans can be kind and caring, and allows you to become her friend through interactions with Papyrus. Hell, her way of revenge is being overly nice and making you like her so much that you can never stop thinking about her.

The light blue SOUL represents patience, and it unfortunately does not have an ingame boss fight to reference, though you'll see why that's not a huge deal in due time. There is only one character who has waited years and years and years to get what they want, someone who takes the longest to spare, and someone who has longed for ages for people who will never return. King Asgore has suffered so much during his lifetime; he's lost his children and his wife, the people he cared about most, and has devoted his every fiber of being to capturing innocent children and reaping their SOULs so his subjects can finally escape after years of imprisonment. His fight also requires patience as well in order to complete a Pacifist Run, as he destroys the Mercy option, prompting the player to fight until the end. The message of Asgore's character is that patience is needed to accomplish one's goals.

The blue SOUL is back to easiness, as a boss actually turns the SOUL blue during their fight. The blue SOUL represents integrity, and there are two characters who turn the player's SOUL blue, the skeleton brothers Sans and Papyrus. Papyrus seems to fit the bill better, for reasons that will be explained shortly, and for the simple reason that fighting Sans is throwing away your integrity, humanity, and SOUL. When you fight Papyrus during the Pacifist Run, you are breaking your reputation as a terrible evil human, fighting for your integrity and rebranding yourself as a cheerful and empathetic young child. Papyrus has his integrity to fight for as well; he is trying to become a member of the Royal Guard, but if he does not capture this human for Asgore, he'll never be inducted. This whimsical fight with an awesome soundtrack has a lot riding on it.

And finally, the purple SOUL, which represents perseverance. Yes, the player's SOUL turns purple during the Muffet fight, but I believe the purple has less to do with Trap Mode and more to do with a much less occurring attack, Karmic Retribution. Yes, the purple SOUL represents Sans the skeleton, the lazy joke-cracking timeline guardian with telekinetic and necromantic abilities. This fight only occurs in the Genocide Route, where the two red-souled humans have nearly joined as one, and boy, is someone working against them. At the end of every game, Sans judges the player's actions in the Final Corridor, but if he is on the Genocide Route, he challenges the player to a fight. His attacks range from mini-parkour, waves of Gaster Blasters, and my favorite, nothing. All of these attacks require a lot of perseverance, and I must say, Sans took me hours to beat. Sans is also persevering himself, as he has to sit through hours of a human terrorizing his home and massacring his friends, mustering all the strength he can to fix this anomaly in the timeline, to the point where he loses all strength and allows himself to be brutally murdered by the now-possessed Frisk. Karmic Retribution, his attack type, is lingering damage and would presumably only work if the player has killed enough monsters, gained enough EXP or LOVE, whichever you want to call it. And while Muffet's Trap Mode affects the SOUL, Sans's Karmic Retribution affects the soul, which is why I think he represents the purple SOUL more.

Now, this may not change the experience of many people's playthroughs, but if you consider that every major boss you confront represents a SOUL of a human child, an emotion felt by both humans and monsters, it may impact how you play the game. When coming up with these ideas, a friend of mine suggested that the SOULs correspond to the monsters that represent that emotion, but these are human SOULs. The human, the protagonist, the player, they are the one that must exhibit determination, bravery, justice, kindness, patience, integrity, and perseverance. The player's actions affect their SOUL, not the monsters; if a player massacres the world, they lose their SOUL, and if a player helps all the monsters, their conscience carries the pride of having saved every SOUL in the Underground. Plus, the monsters barely remember anything when you reset the game, but the player knows what happens every time they play, and the player's conscience carries the guilt of every monster killed and the pride of every monster spared. That concludes my thoughts on the SOULs, and remember, #RIVERPERSONISTHERIVERPERSON2016 #ILLUMINATICONFIRMED!


	3. If I Had A Real Knife

If I Had a Real Knife, I'd Stab You in Every Possible Parallel Dimension – An Essay by Andrew "Darnius" Falkowitz

Ah, Undertale, what a wonderful game. You never have to kill anyone, you make wonderful friends with everyone from racist extremely violent fish ladies to nihilistic omnipotent timeline guardian skeletons, and the game really makes you feel something. Now, that something varies on whether you make it a point to bestow mercy on every foe you might face, brutally slaughter everything in your path, or just generally be a noob like most everybody and murder your adopted mother before finally feeling sorry for your actions. Now, some of you may be unsure of what I'm talking about, and I have a few questions to ask you. Firstly, what rock have you been living under since August? Secondly, did you not buy this game because you thought you wouldn't like it? Thirdly, if you answered yes to the previous question, would you mind if I asked you to fuck yourself with a redwood tree trunk?

Jokes aside, Undertale is a great game with a couple of different paths, each branching out into upwards of 28 different endings, which mostly fall into these three categories. The Neutral Ending involves neither sparing and befriended everyone nor killing everyone, but simply acts as if you played the game normally. After beating the final boss, Sans the skeleton will call you up after you've exited the Underground, and give you a brief explanation of what's happened since you left, sometimes calling in your friends like Papyrus, Undyne, and Mettaton. These endings range from the hilarious Annoying Dog ending, in which the Annoying Dog becomes President of the Underground, and the _fabulous_ Mettaton ending, where Mettaton is ruler of the Underground, to the soul-crushing Leaderless ending, where the Underground falls into a hopeless anarchy after you slaughtered their natural leaders, and the painful Near-Genocide ending, where Dr. Alphys becomes the leader of the Underground after evacuating Hotland because of your murders. Regardless of the ending you get, a few things stay true: Asgore is dead and someone must take control of the Underground or leave it as a hopeless anarchy, and if you leave Flowey alive after his boss fight, Flowey will prompt you to move on to the Pacifist Ending, which is reached by doing a few simple tasks. The first involves sparing everybody in the Underground, with the exception of the Dummy and Napstablook in the ruins, who can be killed. Second, you must befriend Papyrus and Undyne, and then deliver the letter from Undyne to Alphys and complete the date in the dump. Finally, explore the True Lab and turn on the power, and if vines are covering the elevator back to CORE, the Pacifist ending will occur. In this ending, not only is everyone left alive, but Asriel Dreemurr, God of Hyperdeath or angel of death or Prince of the Underground or whatever the Internet is calling him these days, is awoken from his form as a flower, which I personally thought was one of the best twists in all of gaming. However, saving and forgiving Asriel is cut short, as destroying the Barrier has used up all his strength, and by giving all the SOULs back to the monsters, he will revert back to Flowey soon. After the credits roll, that has happened, though Flowey begs the player not to reset, to make sure Frisk is happy. So, you do exactly what Flowey really wants, and you reset your game, tackling the last route, the Genocide run. Kill everyone. That's it. Make sure you exhaust every area's encounters, fight Undyne the Undying and Mettaton NEO, and encounter Flowey in New Home. If you do this, the hardest boss fight in the game will occur, awakening the last child of the Dreemurrs, Chara, the first human. And, eh, just a side note, if you do name your fallen human Stupid like I did while collecting research for this theory, it makes Chara's monologue that much more funny. Needless to say, it's still pretty scary, as Chara deletes your game, steals your SOUL, and murders all your friends in every single subsequent ending, Neutral, Pacifist, or Genocide.

Now, before I go on with the quantum wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, I'd like to point out that I only mentioned three endings, and you're probably thinking, "Well Darnius, you're obviously holding back information." I'm not really, since this ending is only achieved by either hacking the game, or receiving a bad copy of the game, and is an error-handling message delivered by Sans, who calls you a dirty hacker, giving the ending its name. If you get this ending and you did not hack, take Sans's advice and contact tobyfox on Twitter with evidence of the problem, because that's a serious coding issue and really shouldn't be happening. Now, put on your tinfoil hats and buckle your hype seatbelts, because it's about to get theorize-y in here!

Now, there's something strange about the ramifications of the Genocide playthrough, as even if Chara steals your SOUL, the fact that they are a video game character means your game should not remember this if you reset. However, the game is coded in such a way that if a certain "Genocide-gate" is ever "passed through," some extra files will be activated that prevent the normal endings from ever happening again, unless of course you delete system_32 or keep an extra save file on hand like I do. I wrote a post on Enjin about ten or fifteen minutes ago about the three routes awakening three Dreemurr children that have to do with the prophecy spoken of in Waterfall, the prophecy of the angel and the Delta Rune. This got me thinking, and it lead me down a direction that had nothing to do with my original post, but to a different post I made with an Undertale timeline. See, I made a quick point about Frisk, Chara, and the player controlling the same entity, the protagonist, but with different motives and different ways of accessing the protagonist. Frisk shows their true thoughts when certain things are interacted with, giving the player a view into Frisk's thoughts. Chara shows their true thoughts in red text during the Genocide Route, and also in certain instances in the Genocide Route, such as when Frisk skips Papyrus's puzzles, or when the player deals the finishing blow to Sans without input. The player does the brunt of the work, and I'm sure you'd know what you're doing, since you're the one playing the game. This now got me thinking once more, which is a dangerous process that usually results in rants about cassowaries or creating a German Undertale AU, and it drew me of all places to a Shamchat roleplay, where I considered all the people that might or are confirmed to know about different timelines. Of course, Frisk, Chara, the player, and Flowey/Asriel know, since they all have the ability to SAVE the game, which will tie into a quantum hullabaloo I'll explain later. Sans definitely knows since he's a timeline guardian who literally lives outside of all timelines, and it's assumed that Dr. W.D. Gaster knows, since he is most likely the tutor of Sans and possibly Papyrus and Dr. Alphys (who might also know), and King Asgore knows more than most monsters, definitely remembering when you've killed him as opposed to characters like Toriel and Undyne briefly mentioning their recurring déjà vu. On a side note, given that very few characters were alive in both the War and Undertale's slice of time, it can be inferred that these war heroes (Asgore and Gerson, and possibly more) learned about the timelines through the humans' interactions with them, though it's unclear. Now, what really intrigued me was the fact that Sans, Dr. Gaster, and possibly Papyrus and Alphys would have a more extensive knowledge than Asgore, Asriel, and the Player Trio, and it's theorized that Dr. Gaster was also a timeline guardian with the same quantum meta-knowledge as Sans, which could be where Sans gained his powers. After his mysterious "disappearance" (*wink wink*), Sans was left as the only one with a hands-on knowledge of the Many-Worlds interpretation of time.

First thought of in 1957 by Hugh Everett, the MWI, in tandem with the Schrodinger explanation, states that for every decision in the universe, there are two branching timelines that correspond to each choice. Before I give examples, I'd like to point out that there are many instances of real-world objects or people finding their way into Undertale; most importantly is the Annoying Dog, who manages to create infinite copies of itself creating Undertale, starting the process anew, which means that eventually there is a start to that loop where Toby Fox created Undertale and placed the Annoying Dog inside to create Undertale. Anyway, say you went online and found this new indie game Undertale and are considering whether to buy it. If you buy the game, there's now a separate universe in which you didn't buy the game. You did Neutral on your first run? Not only is there a separate universe where you did Genocide for your first run, but there's actually 24 other separate universes for every possible Neutral ending. Every choice you make, down to the tiniest decision to take a breath, or for a cell to replicate, or for DNA to replicate, or for atoms to bond, or for subatomic particles to conglomerate, or for quarks to appear and annihilate each other, these all have literally world-building implications. There's a different Undertale for everyone, literally, but I want to focus simply on the three different ending paths, strictly within the sorta-kinda isolated universe of Undertale, one Annoying Dog cycle deep. Things are going either really good, really bad, or just normal for the Underground, and there's only one person who knows what's up, Sans. You know what was really weird for me? In Snowdin, Sans says something along the lines of "You're not human, but keep up the charade for my brother, will ya?" But, even Chara is human, SOULless or not, so it really doesn't make sense. But, if you consider that Sans can see that Undertale is a game, with an even clearer insight than Flowey/Asriel, he knows that you're not human in the Undertale sense of human. You, the player, yes you, don't live on the Surface where there's a society of monsters living underneath your feet. You don't have ancestors who fought in a war against said monsters. You don't have a cartoony pixelated heart to represent your SOUL. You don't possess liquid determination that allows you to SAVE your game when spelunking. You're a real-life human, with weaknesses and monster-free subterranean environments and beating hearts and all that fun stuff. Back to Sans for a moment, he's considered to be nihilistic because he can see that no matter what happens, everything just eventually gets reset or left alone forever, but there's a deeper meaning behind it. He's depressed and nihilistic because everything gets reset or left alone forever _and there's nothing anyone can do about it_. All except you, the source of all the problems, the one who booted up your precious little game and cast a squinty-eyed sweater-wearing child into the oblivion below, the one who named the adopted child of the king and queen Butts Dreemurr, the one who can murder everyone in one timeline but spare everyone in another, and most importantly, the one who resets everything back to square one no matter how much good or bad they've done. Even in Genocide, Chara is a representation of your misdeeds, and their resetting of the world is only because you allowed them to become so strong. Chara talks to you, not Frisk, and that's a real problem.

In conclusion, this wonderful game that makes you feel is really just a melting pot of emotions and horrifying ends that has been created because you saw Jacksepticeye give Papyrus the most amazing voice possible for a video game character and begged your mom or dad to whore out their credit card number so you could download a game made by a known hacker and the real-world equivalent of a mentally-retarded feline with an unhealthy addiction to bargain Frosted Flakes. If you didn't buy this game, you wouldn't have caused such a problem in this particular Undertale universe, and in the words of the great Jirard Khalil, "This game is anti-me!" So, as a fan of the game, buy Undertale, it's great. But as an angry shitposter on the Internet with minimal knowledge of quantum mechanics and sixty-year-old experiments, don't buy Undertale, because you're just causing more problems for this hopeless kingdom anyway. So, to all those who have bought Undertale, including myself, if I had a Real Knife, I would stab you in every possible parallel dimension.


End file.
